Tara Brach - Releasing Karmic Patterns

Episode Date: November 10, 2010

2010-11-10 - Releasing Karmic Patterns - We all have conditioned patterns of thinking and behaving that keep us identified as a separate, deficient self. This talk investigates the roots of this conditioning and ways that pausing and awakening mindfulness can free us to live from our inherent love and wisdom. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Thank you!

When I teach, one of the questions are probably the most predominant area of questions that come to me are really how do these meditations help us to get out of painful life patterns? You know, the patterns that we've been rerunning forever on how we avoid intimacy or don't function well in intimate relationships are the patterns that we're trying to get out of in parenting or perhaps addictive patterns. For many, it's how we treat ourselves. But that's the main domain of inquiry people come with. How do I break patterns?

They're considered karmic patterns, and by that it's really not a woo-woo thing. It's more karma simply means cause and effect, that in some way these patterns are generated by our thoughts and behaviors, and then those thoughts and behaviors seed the next round of the same thing. So we're just caught in a pattern of how we're living. The ground of all our karmic patterns, and I'm tonight talking about the unhealthy karmic patterns,

the ones that make our lives feel small and stuck. The ground of them is the basic reflex that has been identified in both Western psychology and Buddhist psychology of when things are pleasant, we tend to grab on. It's not like we just relax and enjoy them, which takes a certain open-handedness. We pursue. We're chasing after pleasures.

We're trying to keep them, control them. And when it's unpleasant, we don't just open to what's happening. We resist. We push away. We judge. Every carmic pattern that we're stuck in, that's unhealthy comes out of this basic, mostly unconscious reflex that we live with.

In the polyscript, it's called duca, that we're continuously in some way dissatisfied and sensing something's missing or something's wrong. But it's not always really blatant. Often it's a very subtle kind of, you know, just a sense like we're waiting for the next thing. We're waiting for the next moment to contain what this moment is. does not. It can be subtle. But sometimes we're suffering in its anguish. It's like this really doesn't

feel good. The good news is, and this is really why the Buddha taught the Dharma, the path, is that we can free ourselves from patterns. It's not exactly a self-freeing a self, but freedom is possible. and the means of freedom is that any moment we truly arrive in presence, like there's really a wakeful openness with what's happening. In those moments we're undoing the neural pathways, we're undoing the karmic tendencies that kept us in a trance. Any moment of presence. Now presence is this kind of big word,

and there are levels of presence. We can be somewhat present, like some sense of, okay, I'm here and I know what's going on. And then the quality of recognizing and allowing can be radically deep and profound where our cells are really, there's an openness, like it's really allowing this life to be as it is, without any resistance. And of course, in those moments, the freedom is profound. So that's the good news. And it has to do with every level of our patterning.

You can, if instead of pursuing a judgmental thought pattern about how somebody just sabotaged you in some way, instead of pursuing it, you go, okay, presence. And you feel the heat in your chest and the tension that's there. And you just breathe and stay with that. In those moments, you're undoing a patterning of the mind. you're loosening the identification with your judgment. If instead of eating the second or third bowl of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia or whatever your thing is, instead of that, you feel the urge and you let it be there

and you don't judge it, you just feel it and you just wait and be with and just experience it, but don't act. You're loosening a pattern and identification with a wanting self. if in any moment you're washing the dishes but trying to get that done so you can get back to your email and instead of racing through it you just arrive and wash the dishes and feel the suds in the heat and feel your restlessness and just be with all that you're breaking or loosening or in some way decreasing that patterning that identity of a self on his or her way somewhere else.

Does that make sense? That when we can pause in the middle of a chain that we're normally in and choose presence, we weaken the chain. So tonight's going to be really an exploration of how we can step out of the patterning that really causes pain in our life by learning to pause and deepen presence. And I use the language unconditional presence. And I use it somewhat synonymously with radical acceptance. Because what we're talking about is a capacity to stop the chain reaction, the tumbling into the future,

and truly recognize and open to what's right here. So when we start doing it, we find the huge force of our, conditioning to not want to be here and to change things. I mean as soon as we encounter difficulty everything in us wants to control it and manage it and change it and change ourselves or change another person we don't want to pause and just be with. So even the intention to do that actually shows us the force of our conditioning. So the chief executive of a large company was greatly admired for his energy and drive, but he suffered from one embarrassing weakness. Each time he entered the president's office to make his

monthly report, he would wet his pants. So embarrassing. The kindly president advised him to see a urologist at the company's expense. But when he appeared the following month, his pants were again wet. So didn't you see the urologist? asked the president. Well, no, he was out. So I went and saw I went and did a meditation class instead, worked with a meditation teacher, and he said, and I'm cured, the executive said. He said, I no longer feel embarrassed. You know how we always talk about, you know, it's not what's happening, it's how we're relating to it. Well, it doesn't always seem like a good idea.

Like sometimes we think, no, I got to change what's happening, right? I mean, this is not a great sales pitch for radical acceptance, is it? I mean, okay, I'll radically accept my fascination with arson, or, you know, I'll radically accept this draw to handling poisonous snakes, or, you know, it's like, do we really radically accept things? It's a really interesting question. And I'm often asked, you know, and this is, this comes at me very regularly, you know, aren't there some things that we just shouldn't accept?

Aren't there some things that don't warrant this open, unconditional presence? And when people ask me that, they bring up, you know, are we supposed to radically accept global warming? Are we supposed to radically accept an abusive relationship? Are an addictive behavior? I get this question. Every time I teach a weekend workshop on radical acceptance, like, you know, are we supposed to just sit back and be passive when, you know, our country continues its militant, you know, activity that's fueling you? the cycles of violence. Am I supposed to sit back? Am I supposed to radically accept? So just to say that there's this deep fear that acceptance means passivity and that therefore there won't be change.

And to me, one of the great teachings of whatever, the century, whatever, was Carl Rogers when he said, you know, the great paradox was, it wasn't until I accepted myself just as I was. that I was free to change. So what he's saying is that acceptance or unconditional presence with just how it is is the precondition to transformation. A true awakening of consciousness cannot happen unless we first have this capacity to be with life just as it is right now. So what do we really mean by accepting or unconditionally?

presence because it's not let's say we have a belief of I'm a failure are we accepting this belief that I'm a failure we're not accepting the content we're not saying oh yes that's true I'm a failure what we're accepting is okay that belief is there and here's what happens when I'm believing it as I feel this sense of shame and depression and fear we're accepting those feelings we're not accepting it's okay that there's global warming. We're accepting the feeling of despair, our fear that comes up around the fact that our environment and our planet are in such a place of disease. All we're bringing unconditional presence to is what's right here in the moment inside us.

What's arising right here. And when we're able to do that, now when we're able to bring that fullness of presence, presence to this fear or grief about global warming, that presence then taps us into the intelligence and compassion that guides us in our action. Actions are given we need to act. Part of being alive is activity. So this isn't about passivity. It's about how to act on this planet in a way that serves healing. What we find, though, is that when something unpleasant comes along. Okay, when the addictions in our face or the abuse or the what's going on in the planet,

instead of pausing and really arriving in presence so we can discover what's really here, we flip right away into reaction. When somebody says something critical, rather than feeling, oh, okay, what is that like inside me? We flip right into reaction. when we make a mistake rather than opening and just feeling that feeling that goes on with that, we immediately try to cover for ourselves or we turn on ourselves. That keeps the karmic cycles going.

So the big question is, how do we begin to see that we're in this ongoing tumble of reactivity so that we can pause and reconnect with presence? Most of us here might say, yeah, I get it. When there's pleasant stuff, I kind of hold on, and when it's unpleasant, I resist. Like if I did a hand raise or let me do a hand raise. How many of you, does that make sense? Yes, we kind of operate like that a lot. Can I see?

Okay, so most of us get that that's kind of the mechanism, right? But when we're in it in our daily trance, we're not aware moment to moment of how our experience is being shaped by that. So to give you an example on this Monday morning because I've been practicing some just watching as closely as possible just this how much my system is rigged

by not liking this and liking that. So I'm going to give you Monday morning. So I got up out of bed and the first thing is I walked into the bathroom and noticed that my knees were not hurting at all. And immediately, I went, ah, I'm eager for today.

This is going to be in my walk as a really good walk. So I was like, ah. And the chigang, you know, I did, you know, it was, ah. Then I got still for the meditation. And to my surprise, my mind was like really, really busy, so busy

that I was going off into stuff that was really mundane. And I started getting really discouraged. Like, you know, this is my time. I have a really busy day. This was when I wanted to be quiet, you know, down a little. But then I had this thought. I just taught a weekend up at Krapaloo.

And at the very end of the weekend, a woman came up to me. And she said that for the first time in her life, she was feeling hope because of the power of these practices, hope that, you know, she really could touch some freedom. and her eyes were glistening and I kind of with tears and I kind of remembered her and my heart just opened I started smiling thinking you know these practices

they really are a gift so I was kind of up again okay I go out from my walk sure enough coming back from my walk my hip started hurting my knee started hurting and then I went I'm kidding myself I'm not getting better and this real sinking feeling of this body it's just you know and I got home and Jonathan was real friendly when I

I walked in the door and I wasn't so friendly back and I walked upstairs thinking, oh my gosh, you know, not a very nice person here. Went online and I had an email from Neil, one of our staff here. She had a picture of, there was a picture of the home page of our, we have a new website. They'll be coming out in a few months. Look beautiful. Oh. I was thinking, you know, we've put so much time this in.

It's really bearing fruit. And I started like going, you know, I hope you're getting the feeling here. So then I got off that email and the New York Times kind of flashed on my screen and I saw the headlines about the hurricane threatening the cholera spread in Haiti. And oh, just, oh my God, you know, just the horror of what these people have been through really pained me. I immediately made a donation and there's something in me went, you know, just felt a little bit. better that I was able to do something and then I turned to myself, God, it's about me feeling better. You know, I make a donation so I feel better. So anyway, the best I can say is that after that I went, well, I'll have a lot to share with you all on Wednesday,

you know. But just to say that in all this noticing, and this is the main point, there wasn't as much identification. I'm letting you know the ups and downs, but there was a presence that was noticing it. So there wasn't as much of a sense of being the self that was going to have to deal with. You know, it wasn't as much of a self sense. It was more bearing witness. More freedom just because of that. And the thing I'm learning more and more is that to the degree that I can notice how I go towards what's nice and pleasant and how I push away that,

to the degree that I'm aware, the awareness is matter. because that starts to dissolve the identity of a self that's pushing away and grasping. And there's more space. There's more ease. Victor Frankel says, Between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. And in that space lies our power and our freedom. I'm going to say that again.

Between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. And in that space lies our power and our freedom. No matter how deep and strong a patterning you feel caught in. You know, whatever the addiction, whatever the, you know, biochemistry of depression, whatever the anger, there is a possibility of freedom to the degree that you can find that space from the stimulus. and pause and rest in it and inhabit it. In that space, love, creativity, peace, it all shines through that space. That's when we can then make choices that are wiser.

We can make choices that lead us to not further harming ourselves or others with our thoughts, with our words, with our actions in that space when we notice. In St. Louis, there is one judge that responded to the over full jails by giving sentences to offenders on probation that required them to take mindfulness course. And one man who was convicted for stealing, this was his comment, he said, I've discovered that there can be a space between the urge to steal and my actions. This is giving me freedom. I can choose not to. It's changing my life. I heard about one very beloved AA sponsor who compared five seconds of the sacred pause to attending a year of meetings. Do you understand that that's where the magic's possible? If we can see the pattern, okay, wanting this, but instead of then going into thoughts of how to get it or thoughts of condemnation of ourselves, pause.

Find the presence that's just aware of what's happening. Every one of us has this karmic patterning to either, when we're feeling in some way hurt to launch into judgment or defense or to try to prove ourselves or to contract into a victim. Every one of us has some patterning, whether it's numbing and withdrawing, getting busy and distracting. Now, it's possible to pause and then go ahead and plunge right into that alcoholic binge, or to swipe the desired item or to last. out angrily and we can pause and then go ahead and play it out I still think that we're beginning to decondition the reactivity just by remembering there's more possibility that in a pause in that gap we come home to natural awareness but let's let's look at how that can happen let's just we'll do a little practicing

here not yet you know I see as soon as I say that word I see everybody getting ready one of the biggest carmic patterns that many of us are in the grip of is where we sense something's wrong with another person you know it goes from very mild mild judgment where we're just kind of

in some way always we have this kind of filter that we perceive another where we're you know just sensing what's wrong with them to blame and resentment to very deep hatred but the something is wrong with you is the basic way that we create distance between ourselves and another.

And as soon as somebody does something that makes us feel disrespected or unseen or unloved, we immediately go into a quick succession. It usually goes from, you know, hurt in some way hurt and fear to anger, to blame, to distancing behavior. You know, some of it's conscious, some of it's unconscious. But wherever we have distance from others in our life, in some way there's that patterning going on. And it's no different. It's exact same patterning that happens globally.

That is why this world, this earth, has always been, you know, humans have always been at war. This patterning of creating separation. And it comes from this basic reactivity, unpleasant, push away. So one man that I worked with several years ago in attorney, he came in with a lot of anger, and this was his patterning and he wanted to work with it. And one of the early ways that it got tripped off was an older brother that was, he felt like his older brother had always pushed him around and had always taken advantage of him. And it happened in one way in a business they had once shared.

But he felt like it kept happening. But it wasn't just with his brother. He had that sense of people are going to take advantage of me and that vigilance and that, you know, he was always suspicious. Even with his wife, he sometimes felt like she's not on my team. She's trying to undermine me in some way, trying to put me down. So we explored, and he got it pretty quickly, that he was in that victim's stance.

So I asked him the question I often ask as we begin to try to undo these patterns. which is, what would happen, and we did it to do with his brother, what would happen if you just had to put aside the belief that he's wrong or bad? Okay? What would you have to experience if you had to put that down for just a little while? Not forever, but just for a bit. You had to put down that belief that he's wrong or bad. And he very quickly got, then I'd be absolutely powerless.

I'd be totally vulnerable. Okay, that was his weapon, you're bad. And so then his practice was to be able to stay and just be with the sense of powerless or vulnerable. To breathe with it, to be with it with kindness. And he practiced. It was actually a practice over a period of months, not just in one session. What he started finding, what he told me was, he said, Tara, when I can be with it and just be with it and be with it,

with and just feel the sensations of it. I actually find in that presence a sense of empowerment that I never felt when I was angry and armored. I've met a lot of people that have said this when they switch from victim to just a vulnerable human. There was a sense of power to that. Okay, there's sensitivity, there's vulnerability. And actually there's an intelligence

on then how to take care of myself that doesn't continue to alienate others. That's what happened with this man. With his wife, he found that when he got angry, it took him a while to come around with her. He'd get angry and he'd have to kind of take a time out. But he could come back and tell her, I'm feeling anger, but underneath that,

I'm feeling hurt. Like, I feel like you're not on my side, that you don't really care. And then from that place, he wasn't threatening her. pushing her away, then they could engage. And their relationship changed. With his brother, it was different.

When he got angry at his brother, he couldn't then, he could get in touch with his vulnerability, but it wasn't that he could then go and share it. It was not safe enough. But when he got in touch with it, it guided him and had to set proper, cleaner boundaries to do with family finances and freed him up to enjoy his brother in a different way, because he felt like he had taken care of himself. it's important to know that when we feel mistreated, radical acceptance, unconditional presence, does not mean that we're then going to be a doormat.

It means that we take the time to feel what's underneath going on inside us so that we can feel the compassion and presence and intelligence that can let us know, how do I best respond to this? So we don't keep being part of the warmaking on earth. Let's practice a little bit. Let's just take a few moments to see how do we break these karmic patterns. And as you pause and let yourself feel your breath

and feel yourself here, just to say in these short exercises, it's to give you a taste of how to experiment with your own inner life. This is really how do we break these patterns of blame and of creating distance, this is a life practice. So be very understanding and allowing of whatever comes up as you do this little exercise.

You might bring to mind a person who matters to you that you see regularly and you want to be awake in your way of relating. You want to be conscious. Could be somebody very close or somebody at work. Where you have some sense of conflict, some feeling of blame, some way that your heart is closed a bit towards this person, and that you feel kind of reactive towards.

And if you're scanning and there's just nobody that comes to mind, then it's fine to sense a part of yourself that you're in conflict with, that you're feeling blame, judgment. As you check in and just sense, you know, the conflict with another person or with yourself, you might sense what's the real gist of it, what makes you so reactive, what's happened, what's another person done, or if it's you, what have you done, that locks you in some kind of a place of blame or resentment. You're beginning to investigate the karmic pattern here of turning against, creating separation. There must be a violation for you to turn against, a feeling of violation.

Now, deepening the investigation, what would you have to feel if you put down the idea that that person's wrong, that they're bad? You just put aside the belief of that person's badness or wrongness. What would you have to feel that's difficult? For some, like the attorney I mentioned, it might be a sense of powerlessness or vulnerability, that you can't control things. fear. Maybe if you stop blaming another, you turn against yourself. Maybe that's what you find. What's in there? What would you have to feel if you put aside the idea that something's wrong with you with this other person? Or for that matter, if you put aside the idea something's wrong with me, what would you have to feel? And for now, choosing presence, just as the attorney did, just to feel that kind of vulnerability,

perhaps not knowing, out of control, powerless, fearful, maybe sad. Feeling what's here with presence, feeling it with kindness, calling on what some might call the high self, this real awake, kind presence. So rather than the old pattern of sensing what the person did and just, locking into blame. You've interrupted it some. Just slowing it all down, pausing. Just breathing with your own experience,

kind toward your own experience. Finding some space and presence. You might just sense who you are when you're not blaming, but just present right here. Sensing the possibility of in that presence, maybe finding a different kind of empowerment. creativity on how to move forward. You might even imagine a situation with that person

and how you might respond instead of react, respond from this presence, this wakefulness, in a way that would change the karmic patterning. And it doesn't matter if you change them. You're the one that's more free. And if you're examining ways you might have turned on yourself patterning like that, if you didn't believe something was wrong with you, how might your life be different? So I hope this gives you a taste of how when we're caught or stuck in a chain reaction,

we can pause. We can question our belief. oh, you're bad or I'm bad, really pause and just bring presence to the experience inside. That's in that presence is the possibility for a different response

and for real freedom. And the deepest part of that freedom is the sense of who we are shifts. As long as we're playing out the one who's been victimized or is blaming or the one who's wrong, we're caught in a trance that has a story of a self that's defected.

our self that's at war with another. To break the karmic patterning dissolves that identification. And it frees us to rest in really this wordless experience of what we are, this being quality, that's naturally compassionate. So we're talking so far about how we get into a reactivity to unpleasantness and then lash out or ourselves or others. What about pleasure? How do we get caught trying to get more comfort,

more pleasure, more enjoyment? Because that's the flip side. And every one of us is also in some way involved with that. So what do you grasp after? I mean, for some it's taste, for some it's sexual experience, for some it's beautiful things. Rita Rudner says,

I love to shop after a bad relationship. I don't know. I buy a new outfit and it just makes me feel better. It just does. You know, sometimes if I see a really great outfit, I'll break up with someone on purpose. So we go for consuming, we go for, you know, getting more possessions. A lot of our grasping is after mental and emotional pleasure.

We go for approval from others, sense of power. achievement, competence. We grasp after other people cooperating with us so that they make us feel better about ourselves. I love this story of physician tells about her four-year-old daughter. She says on the way to preschool,

this doctor left her stethoscope on the car seat and her little daughter picked it up and began playing with it. Be still my heart, thought this woman. My daughter wants to follow in my footsteps. steps. Then the child spoke into the instrument. Welcome to McDonald's. May I take your order? So we have our attachments and we know how big they are. It gives us pleasure when our children act a certain way or become a certain way or when other people treat us a certain way.

Sometimes this pleasure seeking and this attachment is deeply, deeply painful. And that's when it's addictive when we have to have something be a certain way. We have to have that substance. We have to have that person. We have to have that person be a certain way. We need a fix because it's suffering because whatever we want cannot be sustained. It will go away. We'll need another fix. We're caught in this endless cycle of having to get something. Very, very painful. But sometimes this seeking after pleasure is a lot more subtle, and yet it pervades our day. and I'll give you an example which is I have a ritual

and it's a ritual I love which is at the end of the evening when I've done the things I really have to do that take thought I get a handful of fig newmans and I get a glass of bubbly water and juice and I kind of go to my computer and do stuff that it's just mindless but I'm but I'm eating these fig newmans and loving them

I just like it it's kind of my recreation it's my dessert Now, I never do it right before going to bed. I always have a window. Well, last week, I had got my fig Newman's laid out on it, the napkin, and the juice was there, and I just sat down on my computer. And one of my friends from the West Coast called me. It was after hours, but, you know, the West Coast, they don't know that sometimes. So they called me, and there I was about to have my ritual.

And so I noticed as the phone call went on that I really, really was waiting for it to be over. And she was like wanting to process this little thing. She wanted to bounce around. It wasn't just any old night for the ritual. Once every few weeks, I'm opening a fresh bag of them. And when I do, it's like they're like kind of plump and the caking is like fresh. It's not, it's not stale. And this is, I was just opening a new pack.

So, and it's like I didn't have the honesty to say, look, you know, could you call me back? I'm about to eat my fig Newman's. So there I was on the phone, and I'm just noticing that I'm really not present. So finally, I said to myself, okay, you know, you've got to arrive here. You've got to be here. So I just started feeling my, it was kind of this restless, angsty feeling because if we didn't get off the phone soon, it would be too late. You know, it's like I can't have them after a certain time and go to bed.

It started going on, I started thinking, well, I can have just one. But even then I went over that. So I started breathing and just feeling the tension and just feeling the sense of kind of anxiety and disappointment. And finally, in that presence, something started softening and letting go, and there was really space for freely being with her. And it was to me, this light was shine so much on how often what I'm doing feels like an interruption or something I'm trying to get out of the way for something. else. Now, in this case, it was, you know, some part of me was really impatient with myself. I couldn't believe that I couldn't be present with a friend because I wanted my thick newmans. I mean, you know, that's, but I started watching, you know, that was just this, like, wake up, like, how many moments

is there a sense of we should be doing something else or want to be doing something else? I mean, William James pointed to this over a century ago, and he said this, we're in this ceaseless frenzy of always thinking we should be doing something else. And in this case, it was want to be doing something else. So I bring this up to you because this isn't the anguish of addiction, but it's actually quite deep that we are in this trance of going, it's kind of going over the surface of our life, trying to get things out of the way so that there's something in the future that's the big pleasure, the big, this is the stuff that counts. And so we have a lot of on our way time that is real life that we're not living. And that's actually can become a source of grief

when we realize that this life is a flash, it is short, and that we spent a lot of time thinking that we wanted to be doing something else. So how do we arrive here? So we'll do another meditation. And this is a meditation on the wanting self because these karmic patterns, when we're in them, we're hooked in a very small sense of identity. When we're pushing away what we don't like, we're the resisting self, the victimized self. When we're wanting things different, when we're grasping after something, we're the wanting self and there's a small sense of who we are. So I invite you as you reflect, just to think of something you're attached.

too. And this is not a full-blown addiction. That's not what you need to go for right now. But something where there's a lot of moments that you're waiting for it, that you're kind of, that's what you're going towards. It could be a sensory kind of thing, like the experience of the taste of food or sex, exercise high, or alcohol. Could be that you know you're very attached to impressing someone or getting their approval. Very attached to having a certain kind of relationship. And I invite you to experiment with sensing into when you're wanting whatever this is,

when you're wanting it, but you don't have it. What it's like for you in those moments, when you're kind of on your way to it or wanting it or waiting for it. Like for myself, there was anxiety, wanting and afraid of not having. What's it like when you're wanting maybe to get online? Sometimes that's what we're aiming towards, somehow rather that kind of pleasure,

or you want to play a video game, or whatever it is you're kind of hooked on. Or it might be the dessert. You might even experiment if you can let yourself to let your body express what it's like to want but not have. it may be that you lean forward a little or that there's a kind of a tightening in the fists. Or you might feel what it's like just internally your heart

when there's that kind of tension of wanting. Imagine like if you were in the middle of actually on your way to it and you're just trying to get to what you're wanting, what it would be like to pause as you are now and just feel the sense of wanting. Feel the craving or the urge. and just breathe with it. Just let it be there.

Can I be alive for this? Rather than waiting to get to something. Sense your presence right here. Presence with wanting. See if you can find the space that presence opens up. Sense who you are when you're present to wanting versus the wanting self. And you're just aware of it.

There's a saying that life is what is happening when we're on our way to someplace else. Can you open to this life right here? There's a poem, Reverse Living. The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes a lot of your time, all of your weekends. What do you get at the end of it?

What do you get at the end of it a death? What's that a bonus? I think the cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young. You get a gold watch. You go to work.

You work 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You go to college. You party. You get ready for high school. You go to grade school. You become a kid. You play. You have no responsibilities.

You become a little baby. You go back into the womb. You spend your last nine months floating. You finish off as a gleam in someone's eye. So thus far, We've talked about how we can pause and deepen our attention to begin to break these patternings that keep us in a small sense of self. I'd like to, the last few minutes here, say that that's part of what we offer each other. We help each other wake up out of a small sense of self.

Our presence with each other can be a pause that helps to remind, that helps us to see the patterning, not play it out. That's the possibility of relationships with healers, therapists, teachers, friends. It's an invitation to presence and sometimes a real shines a light on what's going on, when there is that quality of conscious relating. Now, one story I wanted to share tonight that I shared in retreat recently, Gregory Boyle, Catholic priest, who has written a book Tattoos on the Heart, which I'm talking about a lot because it's an amazing book.

And it describes his work with primarily teens and young adults in these gangs in the most murderous district of Los Angeles. And really he describes how relationships where there's presence and care and respect, deep respect, helps to wake people up out of their karmic patterning. and in one story he tells he sometimes has kids go to these camps and then he'll offer a mass and afterwards the kids will line up to talk to him

so here's one of his descriptions he sees the next kid approaching and he says I can tell all swagger and pose his walk is shingang in the highest gear his head bob side to side to make sure all eyes are riveted he sits down we shake hands but he seems unable to shake the scowl etched across his face

what's your name I ask him sniper he sneers okay look he says I had been down this block before I have a feeling you didn't pop out of your mom and she took one look at your ass and said sniper so come on dog what's your name

Gonzalez he relents a little okay now son I know the staff here will call you by your last name but I'm not down with that tell mehho what's your mom call you cabron there's even a slightest flicker of innocence in his answer. Oy, no cabbe, Duda, but son, I'm looking for birth certificate here.

The kid softens. I can tell it's happening, but there is embarrassment and a newfound vulnerability. Napoleon, he manages to squeak out, pronouncing it in Spanish. Wow, I say, that's a fine, noble, historic name. But I'm almost positive that when your hafitoa calls you, she doesn't use the whole nine yordata. Come on, Mahito, do you have a name? What's your mom called? call you. Then I watch him go to some far distant place, a location he's not visited in some time.

His voice, body language, and whole being are taking on a new shape right before my eyes. Sometimes, his voice so quiet I lean in, sometimes when my mom's not mad at me, she calls me Napito. I watched this kid move, transformed from sniper to Gonzalez to Cabron, to Napoleon, to Napito. We all just want to be called by the name our mom uses when she's not pissed off at us. So it's not just our own presence. It's another presence also that helps us to stop and step out of an identity that could be very locked in. Rachel Remen says one moment of unconditional love can bring into question a whole history of our

self-aversion or self-doubt and wake us up out of it when it's deep, when it's pure. And when we have beings that really care, many moments really free us from these patternings, help us get free. So the heart of the spiritual path that we've been exploring tonight is how to wake up from the unconscious patterns that really lock us into feeling separate and alone and not okay. And the key to it is this training and presence. And I invite you to explore during the day, pick a day or a morning or a few hours, and just know your intention is you're going to watch and just watch how you go from,

oh, this is pleasant, I like this, or this is unpleasant, I don't like this, or turning on yourself, just watch it. And awareness is enough. Just the awareness will dissolve some of the identification. and should something strong come along that causes suffering, stop. It's very powerful to stop. Just stop. Just tell yourself, okay, stop.

When there's really a pause, the light of awareness, that luminosity can shine through. You can come home. You can come back to the innate intelligence and love that's your nature. You can then respond. You can say, oh, that's the belief. I don't have to believe it. You can take your next step from a place of creativity and spontaneity, not that habitual progression that keeps the mind grim and small and tight.

So practice. The power of presence is that we're not so identified with that small self, that we can start seeing that gleam of awareness that lives through us. And when we look around, we see that same gleam, same light shining through others. That's the gift. So a closing poem, if you'd like to just let yourself feel another pause and feel a few breaths. This is called Snow Geese. It's by Mary Oliver. Oh, to love what is lovely and will not last. What a task to ask of anything or anyone. yet it is ours

and not by the century or the year but by the hours one fall day I heard above me and above the sting of the wind a sound I did not know in my look shot upward

it was a flock of snow geese winging it faster than the ones we usually see and being the color of snow catching the sun so they were in part at least golden I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us.

The geese flew on. I've never seen them again. Maybe I will someday, somewhere, maybe I won't. It doesn't matter. What matters is that when I saw them, I saw them as though the veil, as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly. This mystery of life is available any moment we totally stop,

relax and open to what's here. May these hearts awaken to that freedom. Namaste. The talk you just listened to has been freely offered. If you'd like to make a donation, learn more about my schedule, or about programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, please visit either my website,

which is tarabrock.com, our IMCW site, which is IMCW.org. Thank you very much.